ECER in Belgrade

Professionalizing Teachers in the Context of Schooling and Forced Migration

Interim Report of the Act4Mig Team at ECER 2025 in Belgrade

This year’s conference at the University of Belgrade offered the Act4Mig project team (coordinated by TU Dresden, University of Wrocław, Masaryk University, and the Ukrainian Catholic University) the opportunity to engage in a research workshop with colleagues, compare national perspectives, and present the first draft of the planned digital course.

Compared to other Central European countries, German society has a long and complex history of migration and displacement. The 20th century alone illustrates a wide range of movements – from the recruitment of so-called guest workers and contract workers in West and East Germany to the (temporary) asylum granted to refugees from the former Yugoslavia.

Countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic have a different historical background. Although both have experienced migration, the reception of people fleeing from war posed new challenges for their education systems. Paweł Rudnicki pointed out that Poland’s education system was largely unprepared to implement binding measures. While some initiatives were piloted – for example, the employment of so-called cultural assistants – teachers were often left on their own to respond pedagogically to the arrival of Ukrainian children and youth. A systematic integration of such topics into teacher education is still lacking, appearing only sporadically, for example in courses on interculturality.

The Czech Republic had somewhat better starting conditions. On the one hand, the country has a long tradition of teaching Czech as a foreign language to adult learners. On the other hand, cooperation with highly specialised NGOs has proven very effective in implementing best practices nationwide and transferring this expertise into teacher education. In 2017, the Department of Czech Language and Literature at Masaryk University's Faculty of Education launched a follow-up master's programme specialising in teaching Czech language and literature to primary school pupils whose native language is different. This was the first programme of its kind in the Czech Republic to focus on pupils rather than adults.

In addition to labor migration, recent years have been strongly shaped by displacement from war zones such as Syria and Ukraine – a topic that continues to dominate the public debate, often in a crisis mode. At the same time, different pedagogical approaches have developed that still shape the discipline and its practitioners today: so-called Ausländerpädagogik (foreigner pedagogy), intercultural pedagogy, migration pedagogy, and the concept of Culturally Responsive Teaching adopted from the U.S.

German universities address these approaches in teacher education to varying degrees. An explicit focus on displacement, however, can only be seen in isolated areas, for example in German as a Second Language (DaZ). For school pedagogy, Kristina Kocyba argued for extending attention beyond formal inclusion to emphasize social inclusion: intercultural cooperation with parents, support for peer relationships, or extracurricular activities such as sports and theater are crucial to creating an inclusive school environment.

For Ukraine, the question of teachers arises from several perspectives, including those working in exile and those still teaching within the country. The Ukrainian school system has traditionally been centrally organized with a focus on history and language. Since independence in 1991, further dimensions have gained importance, such as multilingualism, civic education, and digitalization. Russia’s war of aggression has brought unprecedented challenges for the education system. Kateryna Buchko emphasized the crucial role teachers now play: they function as anchors in everyday life shaped by insecurity and threat, as bridges for families in exile, and as key actors in decisions about possible return. Training in trauma-informed pedagogy is therefore a central demand for teacher education – alongside the need for psychological support for teachers themselves.

The research workshop in Belgrade provided an excellent opportunity to discuss teachers’ experiences and needs in the context of schooling and forced migration in a comparative perspective. In addition, the Act4Mig team was able to meet with students from the University of Belgrade, who have been part of the protest movement against corruption and for democracy since November 2024. For many, the energy and commitment of these young people offered an unexpected sense of hope – not only for Serbian society.